What Do We Stand For?

The Progressive Blogger community has made a concerted effort to organize and document a meme - "Five Things Feminism Had Done for Me" - in response to Federal government's cuts to funding for Status of Women Canada (SWC) .  When I originally threw the idea out for a meme, I didn't expect much of a response.  To my surprise, the idea was well-received by both women and men bloggers.  In fact, it was Jeff of Where'd that Bug Go that gave life to the idea by getting the word out to people.  Similarly, Ted at Cerberus picked up the ball and started the meme off, while Scott of Progressive Bloggers has encouraged people to participate, diligently linking people's posts to the main PB site. 

So, here it goes!

Five Things Feminism Has Done for Me:

1. Perhaps, above all, feminism has given me a sense of connection and community.  I remember that as a high school kid, I would get so frustrated at how a girl could be condemned as a slut while a guy was revered for the same behaviour. It seriously really hurt to hear girls bad-mouthing other girls because they were "so slutty".  And, even though I had a large groups of friends and was relatively high up the high-school-food-chain, these types of things left me feeling very lonely.  I will always remember reading an essay by Marilyn Frye titled Oppression when I was about seventeen and in my first year of university.  I remember feeling a sense of relief: "I am not the only person on this planet that thinks this way", I thought to myself. "And, my god, they are getting published for these thoughts too!" As the years have passed, there have been many times that connection with other feminists has helped me to preserve my sanity. Always confused at how most of my friends adamantly refuse to identify as feminists, I have found solace in such things as the "I am not a feminist, but..." poster.

2. Feminism helped me to resist my own oppression.  It is a lie that women have achieved equality. Ninety-four percent of women in Canada who are sexually assaulted DO NOT report their assaults to the police. That is because Canada is a solid patriarchy; women are well-controlled in our country.  Feminism helped me to preserve my spirit and resist control; I am among the six percent.

3. Feminism made me confront the many ways I am an oppressor within patriarchy. I find it so strange that people try to demonize feminists as these unidimensional man-hating creatures. Disagreement and debate within the feminist community opened my eyes to the views of people of colour, cultural minorities, the GLBTQ community, those of different economic backgrounds, those in the so-called Global South, and so on.

4. While Justin Timberlake may be bringing sexy back, it was feminists who brought the clitoris and better orgasms back. So high five to all the pro-sex feminists out there!

5. Finally, feminism has helped me to think critically and have vision.  A lot of people now readily embrace the conditions that feminists once fought for: women as people not property, our right to vote, access to education and jobs, legal rights to our bodies, and so on.  It may not be obvious, but we still have a long way to go. I am the first to say that Status of Women Canada alone is not a sufficient mechanism for achieving all goals, but it is a necessary one.  We need institutional support, as well as cultural revolution and grassroots movements.

What is painfully clear is that when Harper campaigned as a Prime Minister who would 'stand up for Canada', he clearly did not mean that he would stand up for the most vulnerable groups in Canada. To me, an even greater irony is that the Harper government claims that the security measures being taken in Afghanistan are in part to ensure the "rights of women to be treated as human beings".  So why is it that this government is cutting funding to the very groups that can provide an gendered analysis of the impact of the Afghanistan "mission" on women?

Perhaps, we as Canadians have to decide what exactly it is that we stand for.

...................................................................................

In meme-fashion, I have to tag five people.  I'm going to pass this on to bloggers I don't know so well in an effort to cast the net wide so to speak.  If any of you are interested in posting, please do:

1. Mike of Gluemeat
2. Bree of Breebop
3. Tyler Kinch of Kinch Blog
4. Procrastinatrix
5. Hope and Onions

And, because those in the U.S. know all too well how funds can be sucked out of social programs, while directed toward less pro-social activities (let's call them), I'll tag Shakespeare's Sister and see if we can get this meme going a bit in the States.

Links:

For an excellent Op Ed in response to the cuts to SWC, see Status of Women - Halved at All About Pamusement.

Statement from The Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA)

Comments

[Scott]

Great post, and great idea for a meme in the first place!

[RP.]

Mine are up (finally). Hey wait, we're tagging people now? Maybe I'll come back to that later.

[Mike]

Great Post Polly.

Mine are up now too, as I see alot of Prog Bloggers are. Fantastic idea.

We might want a variation on this to be directed at the BT directly. Something like "What Feminism has done for even Conservatives".

Stuff like letting you work as an airbrush artist or blog administrator instead of being forced to stay home and raise what ever number of kids your husband wanted.

Nice little, personalized reminders like that...

[jeff]

well done :)

[Polly Jones]

I am looking forward to reading people's responses to the meme as they come up.

Mike, you should maybe just start leaving these personalized reminders on some cons' blogs. I'd like to read those too!

I am certain that many Conservative supporters must not be happy about these cuts. There are feminist Conservatives, right???

[Tyler Kinch]

Thanks for the meme. I've never done one of these before, but I think I'm suppose to pass this onto 5 people now. I'll do that after school.

[Rosie]

Thanks for tagging me. It will make me think a little harder ;)

[Godammitkitty]

Thanks Polly! I've posted my "five".

I love your site. Thanks so much for your post, GDK/Hope & Onions

[the mad momma]

and it all went around and came around.. and this was my post on it. http://themadmomma.blogspot.com/2007/02/tag-on-five-things-feminism-gave-me.html.

here's the route it took! http://indiequill.wordpress.com/2007/04/14/feminist-update-ii/#comments

[Polly Jones]

Mad Momma,

Thanks for leaving the link. It's amazing to think that the meme has been passed along all these months and has crossed continents!!!